


A Blind Love

by lotus0kid



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Belle/Rumplestiltskin | Mr. Gold in the Dark Castle, F/M, Magical Accidents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2020-01-06 15:24:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18391115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lotus0kid/pseuds/lotus0kid
Summary: A magical mishap in the Dark Castle leads to a day of adventure for Rum and Belle.





	A Blind Love

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Anon who prompted for my seventh Rumbelle anniversary!

_Are the stars out tonight?_  
_I don't know if it's cloudy or bright_  
_I only have eyes for you, dear_  
_The moon may be high_  
_But I can’t see a thing in the sky_  
_I only have eyes for you_  
_I don’t know if we’re in a garden_  
_Or on a crowded avenue_  
_You are here, and so am I_  
_Maybe millions of people go by_  
_But they all disappear from view  
_ _And I only have eyes for you_

_\---_

_Carefully now_ , Rumpelstiltskin tells himself as he pours the oddly bread-scented blue powder grain by grain on the scales’ golden dish.  His eyes dart to the measured weight and back, watching the grains drop while the arrow rises, more and more, higher and higher.  The instant the arrow touches twenty-one, he stops.  A perfect pour, he notes with a grin.  There isn’t much in life he finds as satisfying.  He wastes no time lifting the dish from the scales and emptying it into a waiting cauldron, leaning over to watch it swirl into one gallon of ice melt from the tallest peak of Maxtrioani before sparking a fire beneath with a snap of his fingers.

This is quite a simple potion recipe.  The most difficult part has been all the travel.  This pot of blue-tinged water represents the work of weeks.  Of course it wouldn’t have been so dull if he had followed his impulse to invite Belle.  Rumpelstiltskin’s grin turns soft as he imagines her wide eyes taking in every detail of her new surroundings, more than eager to see it all.  But no.  Half the reason he set himself on his quest was to put distance between him and her, in hopes of dulling the laughable attachment he seems to have developed since that… incident with the ladder.  No one need know about the other half of the reason.  Anyway, it’s for the best he never embarrassed himself by asking and then enduring her painfully polite refusal.

Desperate to focus on anything but the muddle of his pointless emotions, he moves to a thick book propped open on a stand to read the next step.  Instead, his eyes catch on the previous one.  The one that says, _Add twelve grams of powdered halolimbus petals picked by one afflicted with a longing love._

“Twelve.  Not twenty-one.  Ah.”  He turns back to the cauldron just in time for a plume of bread-scented blue steam to shoot into his face.

He reels away as he claps his hands over tingling eyes.  Gods damn it all, how could he be so careless?  He’s never worked with halolimbus before- he’ll be lucky if this mishap doesn’t turn him into something even more monstrous than he already is.  The tingling is getting worse but all he can do is grit his teeth and bear it.

Of course this is the exact moment that he hears dainty footsteps climbing the stairs to his tower laboratory.  “Time for lunch,” Belle’s voice rings out, “Whether you strictly speaking need it to survive or not!”

Rumpelstiltskin just manages to tear his hands away from his eyes to watch Belle as she…  As she emerges head-first moving up through a black void.  His gaze jumps around the laboratory, and finds more endless black.  He looks down- his own body is gone, though he feels it as he pats his hands over his vest.

Meanwhile, Belle has walked to a certain area where a small table stands that Rumpelstiltskin recalls her appropriating as a place for meals he doesn’t need to eat.  Her arms are raised- presumably carrying a tray he can’t see.  But he sees her, all the more vibrant for the featureless dark around her.  What the hell has the halolimbus done to him?

She puts down whatever she’s carrying and sets her hands on her hips, fixing an impatient look on him.  “Well?  Will you eat or did I waste my time making this?”

“Ah, you didn’t see…” He gestures in the general direction of the cauldron.

Belle cranes her head slightly and replies, “See what?”

So blue steam isn’t currently billowing out of the cauldron like a thunderstorm escaping a prison.  That’s good, Rumpelstiltskin supposes.  For lack of any better ideas, he eases away from the table and in Belle’s direction, desperately trying to recall if there are any chairs or pieces of equipment to avoid as he goes.  No disasters befall him, though he feels Belle watching his slow and tentative journey.  He reaches out to find the edge of the table, following it until he encounters a chair to lower himself into.

“Right then,” he mutters while his fingertips move along the tray, “What do we have here?”

Belle half-shrugs.  “Nothing fancy, really.  But it’s all from the village.  I thought you’d like a taste of home, after being away.”

“How sweet,” he mutters, as if the village wouldn’t have a ten-day celebration if he dropped dead, for all the gold he’s given them over the years.  He doesn’t blame them.  They did rather well after the last wastrel of a lord lost the castle in a bet with someone who promptly drank away the memory of his acquisition.  When Rumpelstiltskin took residence- well, it’s possible they’re still waiting for him to enslave them all, but he’s fended off every descendent of the wastrel and allowed the village to continue governing as they see fit, and a kind of wary peace has been established.

None of this is helpful in identifying what is on the tray before him.  He feels no heat radiating from it.  A sniff wins him the scents of cheese and perhaps bread, if that isn’t halolimbus fumes lingering in his nose.  His hands do a little more careful wandering until they encounter a tea cup.  His thumb runs along the rim and catches the chip in it.  This almost makes him smile, for some reason.

“Tea to start?” Belle inquires.

“Yes, please.”

She lifts something, a pot presumably.  He hears liquid pour and feels warmth come from the spot near his hand.  When she’s done he brings the cup to his mouth, only to have tea slosh onto his lap as he misjudges where the cup, his hand, his arm, and his mouth all are in exact relation to each other.  He mutters a curse and pats at his trousers, then glances up to see Belle peering at him.

“Are you all right?”

“Perfectly fine, dearie,” Rumpelstiltskin lies.

Belle’s eyebrows jump, but she turns her attention to pouring her own cup and taking the other seat at the table.  Rumpelstiltskin heaves a sigh and finds he can’t take his eyes off of her, and not just because there is nothing else to look at.  Even with her lower half now obscured by the table she’s fairly glowing in the void.  Beautiful as a flower, as a painting, as the sunrise.  He absolutely must fix the problem his faulty measurement caused, but for a moment he allows himself to appreciate the view.

Eventually he dares to relocate the tray and let his fingers grasp the first object they encounter.  It’s a piece of bread, which he gladly devours while making sure to keep his other hand on the tea cup, so as not to lose track of it in the abyss.

“You’re quiet today.”

Belle is again eyeing him, and he prickles under her stare.  She can’t possibly care how much or how little he speaks.  She should delight in every moment she’s spared from direct interaction with him.  Nothing else is possible, despite what his silly little heart may whisper.  “Yes, well, there is work I must be getting back to.  Perhaps you should return to your chores.”

Her face shutters, and Rumpelstiltskin roundly ignores the sting of guilt.  It’s not as if what he said isn’t true.  Her duties don’t involve sitting around drinking tea, and he is in fact currently in the midst of an emergency.  She needs to go.

However, after she’s emptied her cup and stepped away from the table, Rumpelstiltskin watches her walk away, and the sight of her already petite form shrinking in the darkness sends a sudden burst of panic through him.  “Wait!  Belle, wait,” he hears himself call.

And for some unknowable reason, she does.  Even half-turns to look over a shoulder.  “Yes?”

Reluctance usurps the panic in an instant, and Rumpelstiltskin twists his lips around words he can’t quite say.

Belle rolls her eyes and cocks a hip.  “Shall I stay or go?  Make up your mind.”

“I…  Stay.  Please.”

A pathetic tremor has snuck into his voice and he knows Belle hears it as she frowns and fully turns to face him.  “What’s the matter?”

“There’s been- an accident.”

Her frown deepens, “There has?  What happened?”

Reluctance again grabs at Rumpelstiltskin’s tongue, but he recognizes it now as more bruised pride than anything.  He takes a breath and confesses, “I miss-measured an ingredient for a potion.  And now…  Now I- I cannot see.”

Belle blinks.  “What do you mean?  You’re looking right at me.”

Another, gustier sigh.  “Yes.  I can see… _you_.  Only you.  Everything else is… nothing.  Gone.  Black.”

“… Oh.”

Hell, he’s embarrassed her now.  In the short time of seeing Belle and only Belle, he has become acutely aware of every detail of her, and certainly those round cheeks weren’t glowing a delicate pink before his halting statement.  He rubs his thumb hard against his forefinger while nattering, “Apologies, dearie, I know this is highly unpleasant, but I’m afraid I require-”

“You need my help.”

Rumpelstiltskin’s mouth snaps shut to avoid saying the best help she can give is to simply not leave him alone in the dark.  “Yes,” he says instead.

“Right.”  She swipes her hands down her skirts and returns to her seat at the table, “So what did you do exactly?”

“The recipe called for twelve grams of powdered halolimbus petals.  I used twenty-one.”

“Ah, and clearly twenty-one is a lot.”

“All I could get, in fact.”

“You don’t have any left?”

“No.”

“That’s unfortunate.  Can’t your own magic just… undo the effect?”

“Possibly,” Rumpelstiltskin hedges, “But I hesitate to try without any of the ingredient in its natural form.  It’s not something I’ve worked with before.  I don’t have a strong understanding of how it would react to being purged. And this is my _vision_ we’re talking about, so...”

“Right, of course.  Do you have any books about it in the library?”

Rumpelstiltskin cocks an eyebrow.  “You mean you’ve not already encountered it whilst plowing through my entire collection?”

Belle snorts and rolls her eyes with a grin and it’s really all he can do to hold in a pathetic sigh at her beauty.  “I’m afraid if I have, I don’t recall.  Shall I go and have a look?”

Could Rumpelstiltskin stand to sit in perfect uselessness while watching Belle flip through book after book, hoping for the occurrence of a single mention of halolimbus?  He doubts it, but what choice does he have?

Any choice he might have made is taken as he feels a very particular thrum on the magic wards surrounding the Dark Castle.  “Oh _shite_ ,” he spits and instinctively flicks a hand, transporting himself and Belle to the great hall.  There may be no place in the world more familiar to him than the stool at his spinning wheel, but he still staggers as his brain struggles to adjust to the new surroundings without sight to orient him.

Meanwhile, he hears a flutter of skirts and a thump as Belle presumably falls directly on her backside.  “Hey!” she cries, but Rumpelstiltskin hushes her.

“Stand up, grab a hank of thread, and give me the end of it,” he commands hurriedly, “A visitor will arrive shortly.  Keep your eyes on her so I know where she is.  But don’t… don’t be obvious about it.  She may take offense if you’re caught staring.”

“So look at her without looking like I’m looking at her?”

“Exactly.”

“Right, got it,” Belle grumbles as she stands and picks something up from a spot Rumpelstiltskin dearly hopes holds his basket of golden thread.  When she extends a hand with two pinched fingers he must wrap his own invisible hand around hers and draw it up to catch the thread end and draw it away.  He’s just looped it twice around his fingers when he hears the doors of the great hall swing open and feels the in-rush of mountain air upon which drifts the flowery perfume of the Evil Queen.

“Flimsy locks,” Regina remarks before announcing, “Rumpel, I have a deal to discuss.  A certain mermaid.”

Rumpelstiltskin glances toward Belle and spots her own glance in the estimated direction of the head of the table.  He aims a smirk that way, then lets his blind gaze fall to where he thinks his hands are smoothly winding thread into a ball.  “I’m not dealing today.”

“Hm, yes, I see you’re very busy playing with your little amusements.”  There’s a sneer in her cultured voice, and beside him Belle flinches.  Perhaps he tugged the thread too hard.

He gives a bored look to the infinite darkness in front of him.  “Your Majesty, contrary to what you might believe, I’m not your errand boy charged to do your dirty work on command.  I deal how I want and when I want and today…  You have nothing to offer that I want.  So, always a pleasure seeing you, dearie, don’t get lost on your way out.”

The silence that follows is icy, and he barely dares to breathe as he waits for the coming explosion.  His gut tightens as he hears Regina’s skirts swish closer and smells a gust of her perfume as she leans into his space and he pretends to focus on his unseen ball of thread.  “You may not take a deal, but I know you’re always curious to hear it,” she growls, “You’re up to something.”

He lets out a titter.  “Always, dearie.  But for this one singular moment in time, believe me when I say it’s nothing to do with you.”

Her corset creaks gently as she straightens.  “Fine.  Enjoy whatever twisted game you’re playing, if it’s so very enthralling.”  The swishing moves toward the door as she continues, “The mermaid will be dealt with, one way or another.  Never fear.”  The door opens and the swishing pauses.  “Oh, and one more thing.  Tell your little doll not to stare so if she wants to keep those pretty eyes in her head.”

The door shuts with one last swish, and Rumpelstiltskin blows out a breath while Belle’s entire body sags with relief.

“Good gods,” Belle exclaims, “Why do you associate with her again?”

In order to accomplish his purpose for living, he doesn’t say, and certainly does not mention that he’s recently come to regret it more and more.  “She has her uses,” he mutters instead before pulling the nascent thread ball off his fingers and passing it to Belle, “In any case, that’s as close as I want to get to anyone discovering my current- limitation.  We must resolve this, immediately.”

“To the library?” Belle suggests, a hint of excitement lighting up her eyes.

“Sorry to disappoint you, but no.  We must go directly to the source.”

“The source- you mean where halolimbus grows?”  Suddenly her eyes are gleaming, “You mean you’re taking me traveling with you?”

“I- well, I certainly can’t go alone,” Rumpelstiltskin stammers as his mind reels, and reels further as Belle flings her arms around his neck, all but falling into his lap as she giggles brightly and squeezes gently.

“At last, I finally get to _see_ one of these places you’re always talking about!”

“Good thing I already saw Defrel,” Rumpelstiltskin grouses to avoid sighing at the warmth radiating from her to him.

He pretends to be relieved when she pulls back with her lips pressed into a chastened line.  “Sorry, poor choice of words.  So, Defrel, that’s where we’re going?”

“Yes.”  
  
“Right.  Let me do a quick sweep of the library and grab any books on the region, pack a few things, and I’ll be ready to go.”

“Very well.”

A wincing concern appears on her face and Rumpelstiltskin can’t tell if he hates it or loves it.  “You- you’ll be fine on your own for a bit?” 

“Yes,” says his pride in a flash of self-preservation.

“All right.  I’ll be as quick as I can.”

He waves her off before he can change his mind, and she whips around and jogs to the door, opening it and shutting it and utterly disappearing from the world, as far as he can tell.

Now it’s nothing but blackness, everywhere.  Quite instantly Rumpelstiltskin’s chest constricts as he fights against the feeling that a smothering shroud has been wrapped around his head.  He shuts his eyes to focus on the natural darkness behind his eyelids.  He reaches out and runs his hands along the wheel, touching every familiar inch.  It’s fine.  It’s right here, where it’s supposed to be.  Everything is as it should be, even if he can’t see it.  He draws in and releases deep breaths.  Everything is fine, really, just as long as he keeps his eyes closed, because the thought of opening them makes cold-hot prickles of panic roll over his body.

He finds his eyes screwing shut tighter and tighter, breath going ragged as his hands clench on the wheel.  He has to open his eyes eventually.  He can’t walk around Defrel with his eyes shut if he wants to maintain any dignity.  And yet, right now dignity seems a small price to pay to avoid the dark expanse waiting beyond his eyelids.  He can’t open them.  He can’t open them and see _nothing_.

When the first hot tear spills down his cheek, magic swirls up and deposits him in the only place he can stay sane.  His eyes pop open in time to watch Belle turn to him and startle, nearly dropping the invisible load in her arms.

“Oh!” she cries, then pauses to take in his shaky, gasping, wretched state with one quick sweep of her eyes.  She plasters on a smile.  “Good, you’re here.  I wanted to ask if you meant north or south Defrel because I found a book that talks about the whole southern peninsula but I didn’t know how useful that would be.”

“Bring it, bring them all,” Rumpelstiltskin rasps out.  He holds out his hands and summons a leather travel sack that immediately slips from his misguided grasp.

Belle ducks forward to catch it as does he on pure instinct, and suddenly his vision is nearly filled with her face.  And his hand darts out, colliding with her shoulder before latching on, holding her close while he consumes her with his eyes.  She patiently endures this mistreatment even as discomfort colors her cheeks pink as Rumpelstiltskin stares and stares.  It’s like watching a flower bloom.  How can anyone not sit and gaze at Belle when given the chance?  Is he the only one who can truly see?

“What was the halolimbus for?” she asks.  The slightly breathless sound of her unease and the sudden reminder of things he doesn’t want to share finally allow Rumpelstiltskin to break away from her, though his gaze still can’t wander far.

“Sorry, dearie, but that stays between myself and they who signed the contract.”

“I can be of more help if I have all the details.”

“They’re not for you to know.”

“Fine,” she says lightly, as if her curiosity is anything but thoroughly piqued.  He needs to get this mess resolved.

After enduring a span of Belle flitting around dropping a truly absurd number of books in the sack, Rumpelstiltskin can take it no more and barks, “I can’t _possibly_ own that much literature on Defrel!”

Belle deigns to pause in her harvest and replies, “Oh no, there were only a few.  The rest are for the trip.  Earlier you said you had to travel without magic to make the potion.  Will we not do the same?”

Rumpelstiltskin scoffs, “Certainly not!  I refuse to spend weeks of my life looking at nothing but you.”

Belle’s gaze drops to the floor.  “Right, of course.”

“Forgoing magic to fetch ingredients frees the resulting potion from the cost of its use, you see.  Lessens it, anyway.”

Belle’s gaze lifts, now with a squint.  “That’s a kindness I’ve never heard of the Dark One providing.  You must have dealt for something quite precious for your efforts.”

 _I’m getting absolutely nothing except an unnamed favor and unexpected trouble_ , he does not say.  Instead he wags a finger and tuts, “Never you mind about that.  Come here.”

With a wistful expression Belle empties the sack of several books, then sets it on her hip and approaches.

“Stand… close.  Please.”

“Why?” she asks while moving to his side so close her foot nearly touches his.  Rumpelstiltskin’s arm wavers at his side, not quite daring to touch her however it may want to.

“I, ah, have some- _slight_ concerns about transporting us outside of the castle.  To not be able to steady myself by sight in an unfamiliar location is… Just stay close.”

“Very well.”  She picks up his arm and drapes it over her shoulders, then wraps her own around his waist.  “Like this?”

Rumpelstiltskin’s tongue suddenly seems far too big for his mouth, so he just lets out an affirmative hum and sets about the suddenly difficult task of calling up his magic.  He searches for the memory of his brief visit to Defrel, specifically the town of Velinark, straining for details from the moment he stepped off the river ferry and walked amongst the market stalls set up at the port.  There were pines everywhere, their sap scent mixing with that of fried fish and cooking smoke.  Bright sunlight spilled through the heavy boughs until a certain time of day when it dipped past the peak of Maxtrioani in the west, casting everything into blue shadow.  The bustling market slowed then at this silent signal to bring the day to a close.

Rumpelstiltskin focuses his mind on some out-of-the-way spot he glimpsed a short time before reaching the port where the river overran its banks to create a small cove.  He draws in and releases a breath, and lets the magic whip up and carry him and Belle to that place.  As its greasy air slides away the sound of wind flowing through pine needles greets his ears and his next breath is sweetened with sap.

He looks to Belle at her gasping laugh and sees sunlight now dappling her face.  “You did it!” she declares.

Rumpelstiltskin forces a nonchalant wag of his head while a spot within him glows.  “Naturally.  Never doubt my expertise.”

The bright smile slips from Belle’s face as she looks down half a second before he notices a strange chill swirling around his feet.  “Um, you’re standing in water,” she mumbles.

The glow within him sputters out.  “Ah.  Right.”  He shuffles and Belle guides him in her direction until he emerges onto dry river sand.  A flick of his wrist expels the water from his boots, but doesn’t do much to repair his pride.  “So, I bartered for the halolimbus in town.  I don’t know where it grows.  Is there any knowledge to be gleaned from your- _my_ books?”

Belle reaches into the sack, or into pure darkness in Rumpelstiltskin’s view, and pulls out a volume.  “This one I _have_ already read,” she says while flipping through the pages, “I don’t recall more than a mention or two of halolimbus.”

“Hold it out to me.”

She does so, and Rumpelstiltskin trickles magic from his fingers over her seemingly empty hand.

“That should bring attention to every instance of the word on the page.”

He performs this charm on the other books Belle brought, and they soon learn that they have a journey ahead of them.  Halolimbus can only be found high in the hills, usually along the banks of a stream.  They’ll need to be cautious as they go- spring has brought ice melt surging down from Maxtrioani, swelling the waterways and soaking the ground almost to soup.

“I don’t suppose anyone will be interested in guiding us,” Belle remarks, “Not that we’d want to risk letting on about your condition.”

He’s putting her in danger, and she’s still willing to hide his foolish mistake.  Heroes don’t come much rarer than Belle.  “I can take us back to the castle in an instant.  Just give a shout if you spot any mortal danger coming our way.”

“Agreed,” she says with a grin.  She scoops his hand up in hers, and they set off.

Well, mostly Belle sets off, while Rumpelstiltskin follows behind trying to place his feet in her steps and not let his nails dig into her palm with his anxious grasp.  It’s slow going to say the least.  His only contribution is managing to hear a faint splash of water somewhere in the dark expanse, giving them a direction in which to travel.  Belle does her best to warn him of rocks, logs, and low-hanging branches, but he still collects an array of bruises when he isn’t almost dragging them both off their feet by slipping on mud slicks.

While Rumpelstiltskin keeps his energy level topped off with magic, he suggests a rest break when he notices Belle’s soft pants and how she strains through each upward step.  She plops down on what could be a rock, a giant toadstool, or a very patient gnome as far as he can tell, and cups water from the stream to drink, even going so far as to douse her face.  _Pink cheeks again_ , his brain unhelpfully notes, and he picks a patch of nothing to stare at for a while.

“I’m still wondering what all this is actually about, you know.”

He starts, “What?  Nothing!  Nothing, that is, none of your business.  As I said.”

“Why not just tell me?  It’s not as though I have anyone to gossip about it with, except you.”

Yes, and that’s how he likes it, however cruel and wrong it may be for him to horde her away like a dragon’s treasure.  Where does her endless kindness spring from for the monster who stole her,  who ruined her life?

“Can I at least know what the potion was supposed to do?”

Perhaps he can give her that.  Perhaps that’s safe.  “It’s meant to… connect two people over a distance.  The one who takes it can think of the other and see them wherever they may be.”

Belle gives a soft smile.  “Oh, that sounds nice.”

Rumpelstiltskin bares his teeth.  “Indeed, very useful for _spies_.”

Belle purses her lips with a squint.  “Surely it can’t connect just any two people.  There must be a bond between them, something for the magic to work with.  Like- well, like you and me.”

He was wrong.  This is very unsafe.  He shoots to his feet and sniffs, “Shows what little you know of magic, dearie.  May we continue now?”

She rolls her eyes but stands and holds out her hand which he grabs with a carefully curled lip.  And so they carry on stumbling and slipping and knocking about on their way up the hill.  Belle starts huffing and puffing again, but refuses the offer of another rest break.  Clearly she wants this over and done with so she can be freed from playing nursemaid.  Rumpelstiltskin certainly understands, and so ducks his head and holds his tongue and focuses on his steps.

Finally and at long last Rumpelstiltskin hears the sweetest words, “I think this is it.”

“Yes?  Are you sure?”

“Small flowers?  Deep blue?  Round petals in groups of five?”

“And?”

She crouches down and plucks something that she brings to her nose.  She then turns a beaming smile on him.  “How charming, a flower that smells of baked bread.”

Rumpelstiltskin’s arm shoots out to grab the object clasped in Belle’s hand, but then a sudden realization hits him so hard his arm drops, soon followed by the rest of him, and he’s left sitting like a lost child on the ground.  As if miss-measuring the powder wasn’t idiotic enough, he had to do one better, and not even realize it until he’s dragged himself and Belle halfway up a godsdamned mountain.

“What’s wrong?” Belle asks and he can’t suppress a humiliated groan as he slaps a hand over his face.

“What’s wrong is my pathetic, useless excuse for a brain, dearie.  That’s what’s wrong.

“All right.  Any specifics to go with that, or…?”

Now he sighs.  He might as well tell all.  Let her witness the full scope of his incompetence.  She deserves to be informed.  “There is nothing magical about halolimbus in itself.  However, when harvested under the right circumstances, with the right intentions, that is when it gains greater properties.  What you’ve got in your hand is no more magical than the grass next to it.”

“Well, just tell me what the right intentions are.  I’ll try again.”

He waves tiredly.  “It’s not possible.  Not now.”  Rumpelstiltskin stares into the abyss and wonders if he’ll ever escape it, or if the only thing he sees will be Belle, and he will watch her grow older and older, until she finally leaves him alone in the dark for good.

“Hey!”

He holds out a hand but she doesn’t take it.  “Tell me the intentions,” she commands in a tone that Rumpelstiltskin has heard enough times to know is not to be disobeyed.

“The potion was meant to connect a husband and wife.  She is in Velinark, he has been shipped off to war in the east.  The halolimbus flowers must be picked by one afflicted with a longing love.  Otherwise, they’re useless.” 

Sob stories from those seeking a deal almost never stir the Dark One’s blackened heart, but this one drew fresh blood from a very old wound.  If Milah had cared as this woman does, if the mystery of his fate frayed the edges of her sanity and drove her to seek the help of a wicked sorcerer, how might their lives have changed?  And, if he was to leave Belle for a very long journey…  What would it be like if she cared for him, and wished to be connected, even when apart?  Caught in a shameful wave of sentiment, he made the deal, and look where it’s gotten him.  He’s sitting in the dirt, utterly lost and nearly hopeless, and Belle…

Belle has stood up and now walks to him, not stopping until she’s at his side.  One small hand lifts his chin.  The other, clasped in a loose fist, moves over his eyes, releasing a soft fall of blue powder.  He blinks as the grains enter and immediately dissolve, and as he stares up at Belle, light shines in around her and slowly but surely resolves into a blue sky and the tall spires of pine trees.

She smiles.  “Better now?”

“Yes, it’s…  Belle, how did you…?  I don’t understand.”

She answers with a kiss, soft and fleeting but enough to send a warm tremor through his cursed soul.  “I know you don’t,” Belle says and gives his cheek a soft pat, “We can go home now.”

Through a wave of dizziness that might be joy, Rumpelstiltskin summons his magic to wrap around him and Belle and take them home.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
